The average American wage, as calculated for 2015 (the most recent available calculations) was $48,908, according to the Social Security Administration. Interestingly enough, the average government salary in 2016, was $83,072—almost double the average American worker.

Federal employees in Washington D.C. and the surrounding metropolitan areas of Maryland and Virginia — where the managers and top-level agency executives live had the highest average salaries. Government employees make slightly more than their counterparts in the private sector on average.

Supposedly the disparity between public sector and private sector employees can be blamed on the need to create incentives to keep experts from moving from a government agency to private sector business that the agency regulates.

The disparity depends greatly on the employee’s level of education. Federal non-military workers with no education after high school earned 21 percent more than the average non-government worker. Employees with bachelors and masters degrees earned about the same amount in the government as in private enterprises. Government employees with a professional degree or doctorate, however, earned about 23 percent less than private sector counterparts.

While the federal workforce is hardly representative of the entire U.S., the gap disparity between average salaries has been growing for some time. In 2001, the average government worker made 1.39 times what non-government employees made, but that ratio grew to 1.58 by the middle of 2016, according to BLS data compiled by Bloomberg News.

I don’t mind the disparity as much as I mind the fact that Congress excuses themselves from the laws they pass for the rest of the country. That should be changed. Any law should apply equally to Congress and government employees as it does to the American people.